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Europe faces an interesting set of immigration challenges and opportunities: Demographic pressures as many European societies age, a lively and at times tense policy and political debate over questions of identity and immigrant integration, and a unique policy environment that has knit 28 European countries together with regards to the management of outer borders, asylum, and other immigration-related topics. MPI has long conducted research and analysis of European policy on topics ranging from labor mobility and border security to immigrant integration, citizenship, and foreign qualifications recognition, which can be found below.

As the European Union seeks to implement a Common European Asylum System, these publications and multimedia resources from MPI and MPI Europe examine asylum policy and humanitarian flows to Europe and elsewhere around the world.

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The language of migration and development—remittances, diaspora, brain drain, circular migration—has become standard among researchers and NGOs interested in development issues. In 2007, that language formally became part of the migration policy agenda, particularly in Europe.

Countries continue to adopt technological means of supporting border and immigration officials' decisions about what travelers pose risks or are barred by law, making biometrics the norm and not the exception.

With reforms to its 2005 immigrant integration law and the unveiling of a National Integration Plan, Germany expects to improve integration and come closer to the European Union's Common Basic Principles on immigrant integration. MPI's Eric Leise reports.

Although most Latin Americans head to North America, the increasing flow of people from Latin America to Southern Europe reflects colonial and historical patterns as well as new economic opportunities. Beatriz Padilla and João Peixoto examine various data that show the region's popularity.

Vlaams Belang, a far-right party known for its nationalism and anti-immigrant position, lost one seat in Belgium's parliament in the June 10 national elections. Laura Barker examines the party's use of the immigration issue and reactions to its politics.

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Recent Activity

This report challenges the recent rhetoric and addresses the advancement of policy areas for countries, examining factors that impede or facilitate successful the implementation of multiculturalism. When these facilitating conditions are present, multiculturalism can be seen as a low-risk option, andhas worked well in such cases.

For more than a decade, states have experimented with civic integration policies that require immigrants to learn the official language of their host country and acknowledge its basic norms and values—or risk losing social benefits and even residence permits. This report explores ways states can put forth smart policies that benefit natives and immigrants in host countries.

The two sides of the debate on immigration and integration in Europe share an underlying assumption that the problem is cultural, while disagreeing on whether it is the result of too much or too little respect for cultural differences. This report contends that both get the issue wrong, calling attention to the inability of policies to ensure immigrants acquire and retain work.

This Transatlantic Council Statement examines both the challenge and opportunity for governments, in an era of skepticism about migration, to create a new definition of “we” based on a more inclusive idea of national identity and belonging, and to convince the broader society that investing in integration is an investment in shared futures.

Though contentious, regularization (referred to in the U.S. context as legalization) remains a frequently utilized policy tool to address the European Union’s unauthorized immigrant population. Since 1996, more than 5 million people have been regularized through a variety of methods, as this Insight details.

While policymakers are under increasing pressure to reduce illegal immigration, the estimated population of unauthorized immigrants in EU-15 countries has declined since 2002. European governments are collaborating on the management of their external borders, as this report details, discussing the detected and estimated scope of irregular migration in the European Union.

This Council Statement for the fifth plenary meeting of the Transatlantic Council on Migration captures key elements of deliberations on the best ways to bring greater order and legality to migration, border management, and labor market systems through transatlantic cooperation.

This volume from MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration aims to fill the analytical gap regarding the question of what greater global cooperation on governing the flow of international migrants could achieve.The book focuses on a set of fundamental questions: What are the key steps to building a better, more cooperative system of governance? What are the goals that can be achieved through greater international cooperation? And, most fundamentally, who (or what) is to be governed?